


echoes of my everything

by cnomad



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Drunkenness, First Kiss, Fix-It, Light Angst, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 04:07:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3714394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cnomad/pseuds/cnomad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after Harry's return, Eggsy turns up outside his house, drunk, demanding to talk to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	echoes of my everything

**Author's Note:**

> In response to the prompt "things you said when you were drunk" on tumblr from [machtaholic](http://machtaholic.tumblr.com/) (this started out as a short drabble and then got a little out of control). Title comes from the Motion City Soundtrack song "Hold Me Down".

“Harry! Open up!” Eggsy shouted. He banged on the door with a fist as hard as he could. “Oi! Harry!”

It was near three in the morning and Eggsy was well and truly smashed. He’d spent a rare night out with his mates, Jamal and Ryan, the three of them getting up to the sort of ruckus they used to before he’d gone and joined Kingsman. He was dressed in his old street clothes too; no suit and tie for him, tonight it was a pair of well fitted jeans, a polo, varsity jacket, and blue snapback. They’d started at the Black Prince, then gone clubbing where Eggsy had spent half the night dancing with a number of attractive strangers, men and women, and doing shots with his mates. After his fifth shot of Jägermeister, and the club was closing down, he’d told them he was headed home—then he’d run all the way across town to Harry Hart’s address.

Lights flickered on in the buildings nearby, but he didn’t pay any attention. All of his attention was focused intently on the house in front of him. He banged on the door louder.

It swung open and Eggsy stumbled forward.

“Good lord,” Harry said, tying the belt on his robe while peering out at the neighbors who were sticking their heads out of their windows. “Eggsy, what on earth are you doing causing all this noise?”

Eggsy lifted a finger to point in Harry’s face, slurring, “I need to talk to ya.”

The older man moved to the side, gesturing for Eggsy to follow. When they were standing in the entry room and the door was finally closed, Harry turned back to Eggsy. “This couldn’t wait until a decent hour in the day or until you were at the very least sober?”

“No,” Eggsy said petulantly. “Needed to talk to you.”

“About what?”

He didn’t answer, choosing instead to walk around the foyer, taking in all the details he hadn’t been able to notice the two times he’d been there. The first time, he’d been so excited about the trials, so enthralled by Harry’s attention, he hadn’t bothered to look around. The second time, he’d been too caught up in the heat of arguing with Harry over the final test, and then later when he left the house, lost in a fog of horror and despair. Everything was impeccable and totally lacking in personality: there were no family portraits, no paintings. Harry seemed to like to keep those touches of individuality tucked away in rooms that could be hidden behind doors: the bathroom where he kept Mr. Pickles and an alarming number of pinned butterflies, and the office that was lined with dozens of newspaper clippings.

A hand reached out to grab his shoulder, startling him out of his thoughts. “Eggsy, let me call you a taxi. You ought to go home and sleep this off.”

Eggsy shoved Harry’s hand off of him. “No,” he said. “I’m here to talk to you, and that's what I’m gonna do.”

Harry stood there, waiting, his arms folded across his chest. His left eye was hidden behind an eye patch, like a cliched Bond villain. Eggsy wondered if he slept with the patch on, or if he’d had to fumble to put the thing on in the dark before answering the door. It made his gut ache.

“Eggsy—”

“I though’ you was dead,” Eggsy said in a rush, his voice tight and angry. He was glaring up at Harry, allowing himself to feel all of the outrage he’d squashed down.

Harry looked taken aback, for a moment, before he schooled his expression back to composure. “My dear boy, we can talk about this in the morning when you’re feeling better.”

Eggsy repeated himself, louder, almost shouting, “I thought you was dead. For months, Harry. Nobody told me different, so I just fuckin’ went through my life thinking you was dead.”

“This was months ago,” Harry said. “Surely you can’t still be upset about this.”

He narrowed his eyes, his jaw going slack for a moment. “Are you mental? Of course I’m still pissed about this!”

Harry’s hand went up to his forehead, rubbing at the puckered pink scar that had yet to completely heal yet. His tone exasperated, he asked, “Would you prefer that I were dead? Is that what you’re saying?”

“‘Course not!” Eggsy shouted. “Don’t you go putting words in my mouth, yeah? I’m not saying I wish you was dead, I’m jus’ sayin’…”

There was a beat, a moment where Eggsy’s mouth moved and no words came out. His expression was torn between anger and anguish as he fought to find the right words.

“I thought you was dead. Alright? For ages. And nobody told me otherwise. Not Merlin, not you, nobody. I didn’t know nothing until you walked through those fuckin’ shop doors and asked Andrew if we sold any fuckin’ ‘customized eyepatches’ like a right prat.”

Harry couldn’t make eye contact with Eggsy, his heart tight in his chest, when he spoke, “I thought you found that amusing.”

Eggsy shoved him, startling both of them as Harry’s arms shot out behind him to catch himself against the wall. He stalked forward, furious, as he shouted,

“I wanted to bloody murder you! Standing there, acting like you owned the fuckin’ place, like I hadn’t spent months wishing you was there by my side, wishing things had gone differently. I wanted you to see I wasn’t a disappointment. I wanted to prove to you that you were right to propose me. I saw you fuckin’ die and I just wanted to say sorry to you, and then you fuckin’ show up on Savile Row as if you’d been on fuckin’ holiday!”

They were standing toe to toe, Harry a good ten centimetres taller than Eggsy causing him to have to tilt his chin up to make eye contact. He was breathing heavily, his indignation still flowing through him.

Harry reached up, his hand moving as though to touch Eggsy’s cheek, when he redirected to clasp the boy’s shoulder.

“Eggsy,” he whispered. “I didn’t want to worry you or…or get your hopes up only to have me die anyway.”

“That’s bullshit,” Eggsy said, grabbing the lapels of Harry’s robe. “You had to have been in recovery for ages—gunshot like that, straight to the head. No way you walk into the shop the day after your doctor cleared you. There must’ve been months when you was just going to therapy an’ sittin’ in a hospital bed. I could've been there. You and Merlin would have known you were out of the woods, an' you could've told me. But you didn’. You can say what you like now, but what matters is what you did then—an’ you lot didn’t tell me a fuckin’ thing.”

Harry looked ready to speak again but Eggsy stopped him, his voice wrecked, the anger gone as tears threatened spill over his cheeks, “An’ even if—even if things had gone wrong. If you’d died, I mean. I would’ve liked to know that it was here, with Merlin—with me, an’ not…alone…in a fuckin’ church parkin’ lot with no one but Valentine and Gazelle who knew your name.”

His fingers curled tighter around Harry’s robe, his face a red mess of tears and snot. He was sobbing openly now, nothing tame or gentleman-like about it. He shuffled closer, his body finding the empty spaces to slot up against Harry, his face burrowing against the other man’s neck.

Harry was tense for a beat, two, three, and then the tension fell away, his arms slipping around Eggsy, one hand reaching up to slide through the boy’s hair, the other cupping the back of his bare neck, stroking the skin soothingly as he whispered, “It’s alright, I’ve got you, it’s okay…”

“Why didn’t you want me?” Eggsy cried. His voice was muffled, but he kept repeating the question, the two of them slotted together while pressed against he wall.

 ***

He blinked awake suddenly, the ceiling snapping into focus immediately. His head was pounding and there was sunlight streaming through an open window. His phone, the cause of his sudden awareness, vibrated next to his head again. Eggsy fumbled to grab it off the vaguely familiar bedside table, his fingers swiping quickly to find three unread texts.

JAMAL (03:24 AM): lets do this again soon, ya?

MUM (08:48 AM): I guess you stayed over at Jamal or Ryan’s. Ring me when you wake up xx

ROXY (11:02 AM): Merlin says both you AND Harry aren’t coming to the meeting today. I demand details!

Memories from the night before were quick to fill his thoughts, shame running through him as he remembered everything he’d said to Harry. His face felt rubbed raw from the amount of crying he’d done. He squeezed his eyes shut to try and push the thought away.

A new wave of embarrassment fell over him when he realized he was only wearing his boxer briefs, meaning that Harry must have undressed him before putting him to bed. Mortified, he stood to find his clothes only for the bedroom door to open. He sat back down quickly, curling the blankets around his waist.

“Oh,” a voice said. “You’re up.”

Harry stood in the doorway, holding a tray with a plate of bacon, eggs, and toast. There was a cup of coffee, a glass of water, and a bottle of aspirin beside it. He was dressed impeccably in a bespoke suit, his hair carefully styled into place, and his glasses framing his face. There was no eyepatch today. If Eggsy didn’t know better, he would think the prosthetic eye were real.

Eggsy blushed, ducking his head. “Yeah, sorry ‘bout that, Harry. I was just…I was going to get out of your way. Just going t’get dressed and I’ll be on my way.”

“Unfortunately, I put your clothes in the wash,” Harry said as he stepped into the small bedroom and placed the tray on the bed beside Eggsy. He sat down in the wingback chair nearby. “I didn’t think you’d appreciate the smell of stale smoke and alcohol in the morning. I hope that’s alright?”

“Oh, yeah, ‘course,” he said, unsure what else he could say.

They sat in silence for few moments, Eggsy staring at the phone he still held in his hands. He wasn’t sure where Harry was looking—hopefully not at him. The thought made him blush again. He could feel his ears turning red under the imagined attention.

Harry said, “I brought you breakfast, in case you were hungry.”

“Right! Yeah, thanks for that,” Eggsy hurried to say, turning his attention to the tray of food. His stomach revolted at the sight of it. “But—ah, I’d better not. Don’t think I’m quite up for the challenge just yet.”

“Of course,” Harry said smoothly. “Maybe just the aspirin then.”

He nodded his assent, grabbing the bottle and popping the cap off quickly. At the same time, Harry moved the breakfast tray to the other side of the room so it was out of Eggsy’s way. He grabbed more than the recommended dose and knocked the pills back, swallowing dry. He didn’t look to see if Harry disapproved of the number of pills.

He handed the bottle back to the man, and they sat. Silently.

“Eggsy—” Harry started.

“Yes?”

If Harry was thrown off by the interruption, he didn’t look it. “Eggsy,” he repeated. “About what you said last night.”

Eggsy shook his head quickly. “Let’s forget last night happened, yeah? Let’s just say: I had too much to drink, and I came over here because I didn’t want to worry my mum and Daisy by waking them up. Yeah? Sounds good to me.”

“Well it doesn’t bloody sound good to me,” Harry said, his voice hard. “We need to talk about this. I already called Merlin on your behalf and told him we wouldn’t be in, because we are going to sort this out. Today.”

Unsurprisingly, Eggsy was stubborn, “There’s nothing to say, ‘cause nothing happened, alright? I showed up, I said some stupid shit, I went to sleep. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters a great deal to me.”

Eggsy let his gaze slide over to Harry, where the other man was leaning forward, his elbows resting on the tops of his knees, apparently not even caring that he was creasing his suit.

He sighed, sitting up straighter, the sun warming his bare back as he spoke, “You only say that ‘cause I made you feel bad. You don’t have to apologize for nothing, Harry. I should have just kept my fat mouth shut and I would’ve too, ‘cept I was drunk and stupid.”

“I don’t want you to keep your mouth shut, especially not when you’re hurt,” Harry said. The chair was close enough to the bed that when he reached out, his fingers curled around Eggsy’s ankle. “All this time you’ve been hurting and I didn’t notice a damn thing.”

His voice sounded rough and it made Eggsy’s heartache. He’d caused that. His selfishness. His childishness.

He shook his head, “You didn’t owe me nothing, Harry. You didn’t want me to know until you were ready, and that’s fine. I should’ve respected that.” He took a deep breath, “It’s not my place to be telling you what I should be to you.”

“No,” Harry said. “Please, you got your chance to speak last night. Let me have a go, now.”

His fingers curling into the comforter, he nodded his head.

“When I woke up in the infirmary, Merlin told me that he hadn’t told anyone because everything was so chaotic. Everyone was trying to regain some semblance of order after V-day, and Kingsman was trying to regroup itself after the loss of Arthur and a number of agents. He hadn’t even been sure that I was going to wake up, or what I would remember if I did. And after, it was up to me, and I told him not to tell anyone. Not my sister Rosalind, not my brother George, not the other Kingsman agents, and…not you. No one.”

“I didn’t know if I was going to live, and neither did Merlin or the doctors. There were too many variables. At the time, I still had my eye, did you know that? It wasn’t removed until a few weeks after I’d awoken and an infection had taken root. There were so many chances things could have gone wrong, and I didn’t want to be a burden on anyone.”

Eggsy had moved halfway down the bed, so that Harry’s hand was on his thigh rather than ankle. He opened his mouth, ready to protest, when Harry gave his leg a squeeze.

“No, I know now. I wouldn’t have been a burden to my family, and certainly not you. It also wasn’t fair of me to put all that responsibility on Merlin, leaving him unable to confide to anyone what he was struggling with because I was too scared of my own mortality. It was cruel of me, to make decisions for all of you. Especially for you, because, you see, I wanted you there.”

“Me?” Eggsy asked, his eyes wide.

Harry gave him a soft smile, his hand reaching up to stroke his cheek one, two, three times, before falling back to his thigh. “Yes, you. Whenever I was lucid, Merlin updated me on your status. I was so proud to hear all that you’d done on V-day. And when Merlin told me that you had been given the title of Galahad…you have to know how happy that made me. How very glad I was.”

Eggsy hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he released it. When he’d first been given the title, he’d felt…unworthy. To hear Harry say this now was like a benediction, forgiving him for all of his past mistakes.

“Everything had gone so horribly wrong before I’d gone. I’d promised you that I would fix things, but I came back unable to do anything to help you. And then anytime I thought about the things I said to you,” he took Eggsy’s hand in his own and brought it to his lips. “Or what Arthur truly turned out to be. I felt so ashamed.”

The last words were whispered, his breath hot against the back of Eggsy’s hand, his lips kissing the confession onto Eggsy’s skin.

“I didn’t feel like I had any right to ask that of you, when I had been so cruel before,” he said.

Eggsy turned his hand, Harry’s falling free of his, as he pressed his palm against Harry’s cheek. He tugged the man’s face gently, so that they were looking at each other.

“You’ve never been cruel to me,” he said, his throat tight and his voice rough. “And I would do anything you asked. Anything.”

He edged further down the bed so that his their faces were close together, his feet pressed flat against the floor. The comforter was somewhere on the ground, his bare legs exposed.

“When I turned up at the shop, I was hoping you would be there,” Harry said. “And all I wanted—all I’d wanted since waking up in that infirmary—was to see you smile. So I made that bloody stupid joke, and it was worth it just to see your face light up the way it did.”

“That had nothin’ to do with that fucking joke,” Eggsy whispered, his hand dropping from Harry’s cheek to press against the expanse of his chest, the thudding of the man’s heartbeat tapping against his palm.

There had been months and months of resentment on Eggsy’s part. Months of feeling small, like he didn’t matter, as though he’d been personally insulted. And then just as much time devoted to feeling guilty for thinking those things, for feeling selfish, like it wasn’t his place to want anything. But sitting there on that bed, in the same room he’d stayed in those 24 hours before the final test, the only thing he could remember from the past few months was: Harry, standing in the doorway of the tailor shop, the constant umbrella underneath his arm, a new scar and new eyepatch, and that playful smile tugging at his lips while he looked only at Eggsy. Like the whole world was in front of him.

“I’m an old man,” Harry said, his own hand coming up to press against Eggsy’s chest.

“You’re alive,” Eggsy said, as though that was all that mattered.

Maybe it was. The past few months, Harry had been wandering the earth in limbo. Alive, but not. Kingsman agent, but not. His relationship with Eggsy had suffered, the two speaking past each other, unable to say what was really in their hearts. Without their mentorship, they’d been cast adrift, unable to anchor themselves to each other as they anchored themselves to their secrets instead.

“You should’ve told me,” Eggsy said, his breath a puff of warm air against Harry’s lips.

“Forgive me?” Harry whispered, closing the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow me at [my tumblr](http://cinematicnomad.tumblr.com/) where I often post drabbles and other fangirlish things.


End file.
